There's Recommend a Book and Recommend one (Musician) threads on other subforums, so here's this one. Don't just wander in and say "Midget Hunter 2000" and wander off.. for one, explain why any of us should go out of our way to play this game... and another, as gaming covers a huge area, it's also a good idea to tell us if it's a PC game, an XBox title, a board game, something you and your friends made up to play while running around a mall, and so on.

RoboRally - board game, originally by Wizards of the Coast, now being actively published by their Avalon Hill subcompany.

The basic idea of this is that you're controlling a robot in a factory, and you have to get the robot from the start location to a number of checkpoints in order. You do this by programming your robot with randomly drawn cards.. things like turn left, move forward two spaces, back up one space, turn around, and so on. The fun comes in as all robots move at the same time (more or less).. you program your entire turn ahead of time, then run through each register phase one after another. If another robot moves in a way you didn't predict, you often end up not safely on the checkpoint where you thought you would be, but instead falling into a bottomless pit, or moving directly into the fire of a laser beam. As your robots get damaged, their programming slowly locks in, leaving you unable to make adjustments. Badly damaged 'bots end up making endless circles until eventually they wander in to something to finally finish them off.

While you can play it with just two people, like many games, it works best when you've at least three, if not the full eight allowed.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

ANYONE CAN PLAY THIS FOR FREE, as long as it's single player. If it's just on your computer, I can give you a free serial code and you can play games against up to 15 computer-AI players. If you like it, you can pay the six bucks and play against real people, forever . NOTE: A game of this quality, for six dollars, is pretty good.

There's six tech trees, twenty six tech levels, and over two hundred technologies, including special Primary Race Only gadgets (Dreadnoughts, Anti-Matter Generators, Robber Baron Scanners, etc). The Universes have anywhere from 50 to 800 planets, each one capable of holding up to 1,000,000 colonists (1,200,000 for Jack of All Trades, +10% for Basic Remote Mining, or 3,000,000 if you're Alternate Reality!)

The reason I think this game will go over well here is it's 100% entirely math based. Engines travel at the square of the warp (Warp 10 = 100 light years/ turn). Packets do the same, but THEY can hit warp 13 (169 light years). Packet damage is based on the square of the packet speed times the root of the packet mass, plus a base quantity roughly equal to the mass. Growth rates are a rising and descending curve with a peak you select at the beginning of the game, and ALL race creation is points base. As long as you end up with +0 race points, you're good (and the excess points can go towards other homeworld starting bonuses.)

Primary Races: (Pick one)

Hyper-Expansionist - Half the max population, double the population growth, and immune to everything in the Universe, they spread, and spread FAST!! Great beginner race, they get the kick-ass MetaMorph ship hull, and a practically free colonizing ship. Unfortunately, they get no Stargates, so this race has very little end-game power.

Super-Stealth - My personal favorite! Base 75% cloaking on EVERY ship, the Ultra-Cloak gadget, a cloaking scanner, shields, armor, and special gadgets to steal minerals from enemy ships, and PLANETS, as well as free research from spies, makes this a DEADLY little race. No economic benefits, but countless strategic benefits.

War Monger - Just what it says. Cheaper weapons, faster weapons, better weapons, unstoppable battle ship hulls, and free ship scanning in perpetuity. No economic bonuses, but huge battle bonuses. Two problems: little defense, and no minefields, so to play War Monger, you need to never stop attacking.

Claim Adjuster - Banned from all proper games, the Claim Adjuster terraforms for FREE! Other races spend hundreds of thousands of resources terraforming slowly throughout the game, what the Claim Adjusters do for free just by showing up. Gargantuan economic bonuses, offset by the fact that as soon as someone knows you're a Claim Adjuster, your ass has a target on it.

Inner Strength - Able to breed in space, these super-defending people have awesome defensive gadgets, inexpensive defenses, and the capability to produce TONS of people. Big on defense and economy with big drawbacks on warfare (weapons cost 25% more), these are great for beginners.

Space Demolition - Once thought to be an annoying one-trick-pony, these minefield masters have become champions on the multiplayer servers. Able to lay huge, impenetrable mine-fields, remote-detonate their own fields and blow up the enemy, scan with mines, and lay mines while travelling at WARP, these are a very good friend to have... or a very bad enemy.

Packet Physics - Basically regarded as the retarded half-brother in the game, the PP's are masters of mass drivers. With a very small exonomic bonus in the form of a second starting world, their main ability is too expensive and too difficult to use before you get beaten down by your faster neighbors. Do not play.

Interstellar Traveller The KINGS of Multiplayer, they are the masters of the stargate. Half-price stargates, as well as the ability to make stargates with INFINITE mass and INFINITE range, they are the lords of the end-game strategy. Gargantuan economic and strategic bonuses, as well as awesome gadgets.

Alternate Reality - Not for the faint of heart, the AR's live on starbases, not planets! They don't build mines or factories, and these beings of energy produce more resources the better your research is. Capable of building the Death Star later in the game, their population and resources are dependent on the quality of the planet, so all extra resources (no need to build mines or factories) go to terraforming. Able to Orbitally Mine their own worlds, the AR are THE end-game race. Moderately powered through the early and middle, they will dominate the galaxy if not defeated by an alliance of powerful allies.

Jack Of All Trades - Nothing truly awesome, they get free penetrating scanners and an extra 20% people on each world. With moderate economic bonuses and moderate tactical bonuses, they are the perfect starting race, and with careful manipulation of secondary traits, can be a force to be reckoned with.

There are 16 secondary racial traits, and you can pick as many or as few as you want to further customize your race.

It's a 2D physics-based puzzle game. The goal of each level is to get the 'armadillo' (basically a sphere) into the 'portal' (a larger sphere). You can use various materials (rope, cloth, rubber, rockets, etc.), each of which has different properties, to try to get the armadillo to the portal. After you beat the original 50 levels included with the game you can make your own and download levels made by other people--there's also a forum where there are regular competitions held.

It does cost money ($20 I think), but it's worth it in my opinion. There is a demo you can try before you buy it--although all that did was get me completely hooked.

Well, I got excited to post a few recommendations but after the last 2 replies I feel super lame with my suggestions. In comparison my games are lame and childish. You know what though? Whatever. I'll throw them out there anyway.

Kung Fu Chess on http://www.shizmoo.com. It's neat. You play chess in real time. There is no waiting for the other player to make his turn and it can become really competitive to out-think the other player. It's all on-line playing and you'll never play an AI. It's free too.

Sumo Volleyball. Also on shizmoo. Pretty basic. You're a sumo man playing volleyball against another sumo man. The twist though is that you can jump over the net and crush the ball down on the other player. Can get pretty addicting. Sadly, I've been playing the game for over 5 years now. Not so much anymore, but it got me through highschool.

Indigo Prophecy on PS2, PC and possibly XBOX. Just started playing this the other day and it's really intriguing. It's categorized under Adventure Games so it's perfect for all you MYST fans out there. Basically, you kill a man at the beginning of the game (not a spoiler because it tells you this on the back of the game box) and you have to figure out why. You play 4 characters as they try to figure out the mystery of the crime. You play the killer, two investigators, and the killers catholic priest brother. The game plays out like a movie and most of the time you have a time limit to figure out what to do. It can get kinda stressful as you try to figure out what the right move needs to be and etc. It's super fun. I wasn't able to put it down yesterday as the gameplay doesn't get old. There are also minigames you can play including kickboxing, basketball and even wooing girls into bed with you (by playing the guitar, you'll see if you ever play it). Check it out! It's extremely cheap.

cyberdeftly wrote:Indigo Prophecy on PS2, PC and possibly XBOX. Just started playing this the other day and it's really intriguing. It's categorized under Adventure Games so it's perfect for all you MYST fans out there. Basically, you kill a man at the beginning of the game (not a spoiler because it tells you this on the back of the game box) and you have to figure out why. You play 4 characters as they try to figure out the mystery of the crime. You play the killer, two investigators, and the killers catholic priest brother. The game plays out like a movie and most of the time you have a time limit to figure out what to do. It can get kinda stressful as you try to figure out what the right move needs to be and etc. It's super fun. I wasn't able to put it down yesterday as the gameplay doesn't get old. There are also minigames you can play including kickboxing, basketball and even wooing girls into bed with you (by playing the guitar, you'll see if you ever play it). Check it out! It's extremely cheap.

Augh. Ninja'd. Anyway, I just finished this game yesterday. It is incredible and completely worth your $10 or so. (Note: If you want an interactive sex scene, you need to get the European version. It doesn't matter to the plot at all, but it's there. (I played the U.S. PS2 version and didn't miss it in the least.))

And speaking of old Bungie games, I actually recommend Oni. Get it for PC, though, as I don't think the controls would hold up as well on a PS2. I've never seen another game with such a smooth transition between gun-based and hand to hand combat. The graphics were rough around the edges even for the time, but in terms of pure kick-ass gameplay, it can't be beat. Do yourself a favor and dig it out of the bargain bins somewhere.

E.V.O. the Search For Eden - SNESThis is SNES 2D Spore. You start as a fish, eat stuff to get evo points, which allow you to evolve various parts of your body and go through some nicely designed platforming. Every so often you will go through a major evolution. The story, although not really important, has you trying to become a human and enter eden. No one really does that though.

Spoiler:

Zeroignite wrote:And you have suddenly become awesome.

joshz wrote:Oh, you so win.

internets++ for aion7.

jerdak wrote:Nothing says hello like a coconut traveling near the speed of light.

Marathon, yes, Oni, yes! I thought the Indigo Prophecy lost it towards the end, however. Very nice gameplay, though.

I reccomend Democracy 2. It's a politics game where you fudge around with policy to suit your own ends. Fun for a while, untill those pesky religious extremists blow you up for banning creationism in school.

Steven Hawking wrote:"Even determinists look before they cross the road."

Marlowe wrote:I thought the Indigo Prophecy lost it towards the end, however. Very nice gameplay, though.

Oh great. I guess I have little to look forward to lol. I'm at the scene where he fights the cops outside his apartment. Not sure how much is left, I'm thinking a few more days of gameplay considering I got to that point in one day's play time.

I have one. Never played it myself as I can't find a suitable playing surface. This game takes place on any long stretch of highway with 2 lanes in your direction. First, find a driver going pretty slow in the slow lane. Keep pace with this driver until someone comes up behind you. The point is to get this third driver to change lanes as many times as possible. You speed up enough to put a gap between you and the person in the slow lane so that the third driver thinks s/he can pass you, and the driver will move to your lane. Then you slow down enough to put the gap in front of you. A friend's gotten a score of 15.

Note: Don't play this game in areas that are patrolled heavily by police or where gun control laws are lax.

Since no one seems to be stepping up with board games since RoboRally, I'll jump in.

Speaking as an avid lover of Eurogames, one systemic fault that almost all of them have is that they suck with two people. Settlers with two just leaves everyone with a ton of space, Ticket to Ride with two has very little conflict, even if you both start trying to build in the same part of the board, you get the idea. So, then, a few board games for when you end up being the odd pair out.

Quintillions: I got my copy of this maybe ten years ago, and it's held up beautifully. The pieces are all the pentominoes -- shapes you can make by sticking five squares together -- extruded into three dimensions. To play the game you and your opponent (you can actually play with any factor of 12, but two is good) choose six pieces and then take turns assembling them, moving them around and taking them out of the assembly. You get points based on how much surface area you can touch with the piece you have. The strategy doesn't go too deep, basically make the best move you can that doesn't let your opponent make a better one, but the spatial reasoning involved is enough to make it interesting. Also, it's small enough that you can play it in a coffeeshop or restaurant comfortably.

The Game of Y: This one grew out of a variant of Nash. Basically, the designer noticed that when you play Nash on a triangle the center is valued much more highly than the edge because the paths from the center are much shorter. So he figured out that you can level the field significantly by ditching the hexagons and playing on a triangular section of a geodesic dome. Also, instead of each player having two different sides, both are trying to connect the same three. This one has more strategy than Quintillions, but less than, say, Chess. But I'm really bad at chess.

Manoover: This one has a really bad name, but I'm kind of stuck with it. Basically, you move pieces around a hexagonal board and try to push them into a goal while your opponent does the same. Only you get a very limited amount of control over your pieces, and they can cause some impressive chain reactions. This one is even less deep than Quintillions, mainly because of all the random. It is, however, very quick, and it's pretty fun to play ten games in a row, which might take an hour.

Not coincidentally, these are all developed by Kadon. Please excuse their ugly website, I promise their games look much nicer.

As long as I am alive and well I will continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take pleasure in scraps of useless information.
~ George Orwell

The nice thing about this game is that it is built entirely for the Wii and works beautifully with the wiimote and nunchuk. Some games are just kind of ported to the Wii and the put some half-assed functionality in for it, but this game was designed for it.

There's nothing finer than racing around on a wild yak at a break-neck pace and whipping that wiimote to slap the yak's ass to get your sprint on. Yeeeeehaw!

The nice thing about this game is that it is built entirely for the Wii and works beautifully with the wiimote and nunchuk. Some games are just kind of ported to the Wii and the put some half-assed functionality in for it, but this game was designed for it.

There's nothing finer than racing around on a wild yak at a break-neck pace and whipping that wiimote to slap the yak's ass to get your sprint on. Yeeeeehaw!

lol that does sound pretty awesome. i love the wii. even wii sports (the game that COMES WITH the wii) has kept me completely captivated. my wii age averages around 28. not bad

The Settlers of Catan (Originally german - Die Siedler von Catan)This is an amazing classic game for 3-4 players(up to 6 with the expansion)You use villages and cities to gather resources, with which you build roads, villages, cities and special cards. Although it does involve dice, its NOT a game of chance. Yes, having the dice in your favour will help, but if you're stupid in placement of your villages, you won't do well.

CleopatraBrilliant game in which you race to construct Cleopatra's palace before she gets back. You buy resources and workers - legal ones are fine, but worshippers of Sobek, the crocodile god, are more effective. Unfortunately, the architect who used the most corrupt workforce gets fed to the crocodiles at the end of the game, before score is calculated. Also, this game is really pretty.

COMPUTER GAMES

Half-lifeGordon Freeman(PhD Theoretical physics) is involved in a cataclysmic accident in research facility Black Mesa. Escape, and warn the world of the alien invasion. I'd say more, but it would spoil it. This game has excellent storytelling and action combined.

PortalThis is a great game, in all respects. You use portals to navigate a series of puzzles. The soundtrack is awesome, as well - GLaDOS is one of the best characters I have ever encountered in a game.

Rez for Dreamcast (Japan and I believe Europe), PS2 (US, Japan, and maybe Europe but good luck finding it), Xbox Live Arcade (Probably all territories, but I dunno): It's a simple rail shooter where you're an avatar of some sort for a hacker breaking into a system. It's fairly short with only 5 levels, but the entire point of the game is the fusion of the music and gameplay. Every attack you make adds a beat. The more you chain the more you get. Turn down the lights and turn up the volume. It's only $10 on XBLA, which is more than worth it.

Caveat about Indigo Prophecy - It has almost no replay value. Despite the myriad choices you get, the game still progresses in a -fairly- linear manner, so unless you're obsessed with getting ALL the alternate endings... yeah, not worth the replay. Still, great for a rental, I finished it in 2 days.

Ok...

Myst - pretty much every game up through Revelation. I can't really recommend End of Ages or Uru though... meh. And stay the fuck away from the DS port. But the games themselves are quite classic and by far the most atmospheric and outright relaxing games I've ever played. Yes, they're very linear; yes, they have plot-holes you can drive a truck through; and yes, they pretty much exist to be pretty, but damn if they aren't really good at being pretty and presenting an incredibly evocative world. As to the original Myst, despite the graphics looking rather dated the game itself has aged quite gracefully - it's still just as intriguing to play. If you're put off by the really dated look of Myst, however, I'd recommend picking up the newer ones, either Revelations or Exile... also because new machines hate trying to run Riven and Myst.

Kingdom Hearts - Ok, take Disney. Stick it in a blender with Final Fantasy. Add a great soundtrack and some very weird questions about the nature of existence and a fun twist on the old Quest story. Sounds kinda dumb, right? Well... it's not for everyone, but I personally find the games VASTLY entertaining. The gameplay is a great deal more fun than your typical stupid Final Fantasy tripe, being an Action RPG rather than a Turn-Based RPG, and therefore far less boring. The first game is probably the best in the series, as it integrates the Disney worlds into the storyline, has a genuine sense of exploration and childlike adventure that fits well with the Disney theme, but just enough maturity so that you don't feel like you're being talked-down to. Its biggest flaws are probably that the worlds can feel a bit too small, that the platforming is at times quite awkward, and that the camera is rather irritating. Still, very solid.

The much-underappreciated GBA sequel, Chain of Memories, suffers quite a lot in some ways, but excels in others. The gameplay feels awkward to those used to the original game as it's trading-card based rather than purely Action-RPG, and there is an INCREDIBLY irritating element in that you need to use cards to unlock rooms. Further, the sprites feel very lackluster in comparison with the beautiful scenes of the first game. however, I have to recommend this one over Kingdom Hearts II as the plot is absolutely stellar (the best in the series by far) and once you get past the "Eww, cards!" stigma the gameplay is actually a lot of fun.

Kingdom Hearts II, however, had the writer of Final Fantasy X-2 as lead scenario writer, and it shows. the gameplay was admittedly improved a great deal, becoming EXTREMELY entertaining despite the unfortunate removal of the platforming elements (seriously, square. You finally add a double-jump but... take away the platforming? What the hell?)... but the plot took a nose-dive straight past Final Fantasy level incoherency and down into outright WTF-ery. The Disney worlds felt tacked on rather than integrated (With Space Paranoids, the world based on TRON, being a the only exception, largely becuase it was the very first world conceived for this game before the FFX-2 writer jumped on). The amazing villains introduced in Chain of Memories have been reduced to bishounen fanservice - a particularly cruel fate for Axel. In CoM he was a backstabbing bastard, a master of scheming and puppetry... only to become a whiny emo-boy obsessed with a character we know almost nothing about in KHII in a lame attempt to give him "Character development" and make him appeal to the yaoi fangirls (this succeeded, sadly enough). The plot just feels so hasty and incoherent that you wonder what the game might have been before all the frantic ret-cons and fanservice. That said, the game is far from unplayable and quite entertaining all around, but I only recommend it if you really enjoyed the first game.

Illuminati. It's a card-strategy game that's incredibly fun to play, granted you have enough people interested in it who won't get bored and quit halfway through. The goal is to collect cards, attack them, or destroy them, which each player having a different winning condition (make a certain amount of money, destroy a certain amount of cards, obtain cards of every class, etc.)

Killer Bunnies. Another card strategy game, the rules are incredibly confusing to explain but not too difficult to pick up. The deck is huge, with several expansion packs, and each card is fairly unique. Again, it's only fun if you can get a large group of people interested in playing who aren't going to drop out halfway through.

TheAmazingRando wrote:Illuminati. It's a card-strategy game that's incredibly fun to play, granted you have enough people interested in it who won't get bored and quit halfway through. The goal is to collect cards, attack them, or destroy them, which each player having a different winning condition (make a certain amount of money, destroy a certain amount of cards, obtain cards of every class, etc.)

Illuminati is an awesome game. We used the blanks to make cards for our places of employment and things like that, which was good fun. Munchkin is the other made by Steve Jackson Games I've played, which is a lot of fun. A good old fashioned RPG, without all that pesky roleplaying.

@cyberdeftly: Loved the Desktop Adventures. Made for Windows 3.11 though, and I had a bitch of a time trying to run them under xp.

The Mighty Thesaurus wrote:I believe that everything can and must be joked about.

Hawknc wrote:I like to think that he hasn't left, he's just finally completed his foe list.

@Seg Fault: I remember playing one of the Journey Man projects, Buried in Time I think... Do they get better? I loved that one. Are they all based on time travel?

Also, I don't recommend Rez, as I found it pretty dull. It was pretty and trippy and made good with the thumpathumpathumpa, but beyond that, was pretty lame. If you want a good shooter game in that genre, get Panzer Dragoon: Orta for xbox (original, may not be backwards compatible)... It is an EXCELLENT game.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

.... oooor, Rez did... at being a good game that was simple a watered down rip off of every panzer dragoon game that had come before it...

It was developed by the same company, with many former members of Team Andromeda (developers of Panzer Dragoon 1, 2, and Saga). If you go in wanting nothing but a shooter, yeah, you'll be disappointed.

And let's be honest, Panzer Dragoon is a ripoff of Star Fox which is a ripoff of Space Harrier (also a Sega game) which is a ripoff of Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (Sega, again).

The 360 port lets you use extra controllers (up to four, I believe) as vibrators.

Well, fair enough. I'll be the last to claim that adding vibrators to something doesn't make it at least an order of magnitude better. Caaaaaaaaan I hook my girlfriend up and show her how good at video games I am?

Sorry, not to derail: Starscape. Escape Velocity Nova. Warning Forever, and any one of those awesome free downloads by Hikoza Ohkubo.

... with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

NCAA College Football 2008I think I've made it abundantly clear I'm a football and Madden enthusiast. Well, NCAA College Football takes the same core game play, but makes it much more accessible and fun for someone who might not be as well versed in football. You've got trick plays galore, exotic defenses, and, perhaps the thing that made it fun even for my football hating friend, the QB-HB Option play... on a good day it will let a novice beat the tar out of an expert... which is probably why he enjoyed it so much. Plus, if you're hooked up to surround sound or even a decent stereo, the atmosphere is just AWESOME

Silent Hunter IIIYou play the commander of a WWII German U-boat. The great thing about this game is, again, accessibility, through a wide range of difficulty settings. On the hardest settings you have to manually estimate a targets speed, heading, and course, and then manually calculate the proper torpedo settings. On the easiest it's as simple as "I found the Tommy's Oil Tanker! Blow it up for me!" The other big thing is atmosphere. I have put a lot of hours into Silent Hunter 4, and really... it's just not as fun. It has much better graphics... but I never had that "wow" moment. For example: Patrolling off the west coast of Scotland, I received a radio report on a convoy near my position. It was night, with rain, wind, fog, and big waves. I'm running on the surface, at top speed. Maybe not the brigtest idea, but I want that convoy. Well, I found it all right. Out of the fog, at nearly point blank range, a massive oil tanker comes looming at me. I immediately throw the rudder full right and order a "crash dive." I narrowly miss a collision, and slip under the waves.I'm still at right full rudder... my stern torpedo tubes come to bear... to close to take a shot though, I'd probably blow myself up as well. So I order up full speed and charge another 180 degrees around to the right, with about a 70 degree shot with my bow tubes. I fire a full spread, all 4 tubes at the tanker. All 4 hit, follwed by a 5th, terrible secondary explosion which send the middle of the ship flying up out of the water, tearing the boat in two. The two pieces crash back down and sink almost instantly into a flaming sea. As I'm admiring the spectacle through the periscope, I realize the beam of a search light has just swept across me. I turn to see a British destroyer right on top of me. There's nothing I can do, so I play possum... and to my fortune he doesn't know where I really am, despite damn near taking the top of my periscope off. As he passes by, I slowly creep down to the bottom, only 400 ft down and go silent. Another day another 10,000 tons.

Rainbow Six: VegasThree of my friends and I played through the co-op campaign on the hardest difficulty at a LAN party. Probably the single best multiplayer experience I've ever had. Ever. Period. If you disagree may god have mercy on your soul. Yeah.

Izawwlgood wrote:Well, fair enough. I'll be the last to claim that adding vibrators to something doesn't make it at least an order of magnitude better. Caaaaaaaaan I hook my girlfriend up and show her how good at video games I am?

Alright kids, I've got your board game recommendations right here. Yay, board games!(all of these can be found at http://www.boardgamegeek.com)Puerto Rico - A fairly involved but fun game where each player controls an island country that develops as the game progresses, buying different buildings, gaining fields for producing crops, and acquiring new colonists to man these buildings and fields. Best with 4-5, but supports (though somewhat awkwardly) as few as 2 players.

Princes of Florence - An excellent game, slightly less involved than Puerto Rico. Each player is a prince who controls his own courtyard, building, well, buildings, buying jesters, freedoms and builders, as well as bonus cards and "works". These works are how you win, with each work scoring points based on the combination of buildings, freedoms, builders, jesters, etc. that you have.

Colosseum - This game is fantastic because of its combination of different gameplay aspects. Bidding, trading, hand management, completion of works, money management, this game incorporates it all. A lot of fun and visually quite appealing. Each player controls a colosseum, trying to put on a show that draws the biggest crowd. The shows involve different combinations of gladiators, ships, priests, orators, musicians, lions, horses, chariots, cages, scenery and decorations. This is also a game that plays 2 (3?) but is best in a larger group (supports up to 5).

Bootleggers - Oh me yarm, Bootleggers. This game is fantastic. The basic idea is that you're a family running whiskey during prohibition. There are a few different phases and some hilarious cards (examples: "Moll. She's pretty. Pretty distracting." and "Hey! Free truck!"), but this game truly shines when it comes to making deals. With only a couple, relatively small, exceptions, you are allowed to make any deal at any time. Even better, you are not required to honor these deals. Example: "If you don't pay me $5,000 right now, I'm playing this card on you." Team pays $5,000. "Ok, now. Who will pay me another $5,000 to play this card anyway?" As long as you've got thick enough skin not to take this game too seriously/personally, it's an amazing game.

and finallyShadows Over Camelot - This game is probably the best "big/party" board game I've ever played. Not only is it a lot of fun, with a fairly quick learning curve, you actually get to play as a team against the game. That's right, you're simply trying to beat the game. Everyone plays as a knight of the Round Table, you go on quests, defeat Picts and Saxons, and hopefully you are able to defeat more quests than defeat you (kind of). The kicker for this one is that during the game, there's always a possibility of someone being the traitor (everyone knows whether they are the traitor or loyal from the git-go). And since a good deal of the decisions you make are done "secretly" (no one knows what cards are in your hand, what bad cards you are forced to play and which ones you play because you want to), it's up to the players to try and figure out who the traitor is before the end of the game (without accusing anyone who's actually loyal).

Anyway, those are the games we've been playing lately (or we keep coming back to). In addition to that, there's The Red Dragon Inn and Tichu, which are both card games. But this post is long enough as it is, so if anyone has any interest in those, they can ask.

Also

Chrismclegless wrote:Okaay, here we go:

BOARD GAMES

The Settlers of Catan (Originally german - Die Siedler von Catan)This is an amazing classic game for 2-4 players(up to 6 with the expansion)

3-4, not 2-4. We tried to play a 2 player last week and realized it wasn't supported. (sad day)

Totally not a hypothetical...

Steroid wrote:

bigglesworth wrote:If your economic reality is a choice, then why are you not as rich as Bill Gates?

The Settlers of Catan (Originally german - Die Siedler von Catan)This is an amazing classic game for 2-4 players(up to 6 with the expansion)

3-4, not 2-4. We tried to play a 2 player last week and realized it wasn't supported. (sad day)

I'm sorry, I was going from memory(I'm at uni at the moment, and my games are all at home). I'll edit that original post.

22/7 wrote:Shadows Over Camelot - This game is probably the best "big/party" board game I've ever played. Not only is it a lot of fun, with a fairly quick learning curve, you actually get to play as a team against the game. That's right, you're simply trying to beat the game. Everyone plays as a knight of the Round Table, you go on quests, defeat Picts and Saxons, and hopefully you are able to defeat more quests than defeat you (kind of). The kicker for this one is that during the game, there's always a possibility of someone being the traitor (everyone knows whether they are the traitor or loyal from the git-go). And since a good deal of the decisions you make are done "secretly" (no one knows what cards are in your hand, what bad cards you are forced to play and which ones you play because you want to), it's up to the players to try and figure out who the traitor is before the end of the game (without accusing anyone who's actually loyal).

Although I like this game, I think that it needs a good traitor or its too easy. I prefer Lord of The Ringsas a play against the game style game.

Londo: Maybe it was something I said?G'Kar: Maybe it is everything you say.